The Five Hinderances (Skt. pañca nīvaraṇāni) are five mental states that arise in our practice, creating obstacles in our ability to be mindful and concentrate. The Buddha said it’s useful to pay attention to exactly what’s going on when we’re feeling challenged. Any obstacle can be characterized as one of five hindrances: 1) Sense desire; 2) ill-will; 3) sloth-and-torpor; 4) restlessness-and-worry, or 5) uncertainty/doubt. By identifying our hindrance, we get a better sense of what caused it to arise and how we can best overcome it.
The Buddha often talked about how difficult it is to train the mind. He said that single-handedly overcoming a thousand enemies a thousand times is easier than coming to a full understanding of the nature of the mind. Naturally, there will be problems and difficulties that arise in the course of our practice. That’s just part of the journey. What we’re learning to do is to recognize and work skillfully with whatever obstacles and hindrances arise. This way, we can start freeing the mind in the midst of difficult inner and outer situations.
The mind itself is clear, lucid, and unobstructed. Its nature is to simply know whatever is arising. We don’t recognize this empty, open nature of awareness because we get distracted and seduced. We get caught up in long-established habit patterns of thought and feelings. Often these conditioned tendencies are so familiar to us, so much a part of who we take ourselves to be, that they remain invisible until we illuminate them with the power of mindfulness and contemplation.
Naturally, our mind is like a clear, shiny mirror. Free from any debris and defilements. But as we grow older, our mind becomes like a foggy mirror after a hot shower. The fog (defilements, habit patterns, false perception and views, etc.) blocks our view from seeing our mind’s true nature. So we use different tools to clear away that fog. Maybe we use our wet towel to try and clean the mirror, but the wet towel leaves behind lint from the towel and wet streaks. Next, perhaps we use another tool, our hand. This cleans the mirror a little better by removing the lint, but still leaves behind streaks. Then we try using a dry towel or cloth, and again cleans the mirror a little bit more. So we use different methods and techniques to clean our mind mirror so that we can see the true nature of reality.
In English, the word “desire” has several meanings: the simple motivation to do or want something, our basic needs for food and shelter, sex, money, etc. When talking about desire as a hindrance, we’re referring to a force of craving, clinging, or grasping. In this case, desire means a quality of attachment. Our strongest attachments are typically to our bodies, to other people, and to the things we crave. The intensity of desire has a pretty big range. It can manifest as an obsessive passion that dominates our lives, or some addictive craving. It can be the recurring fantasies that play in our mind repeatedly. Or it can be a passing thought that we cling to. Throughout the day, desire surfaces many times in the form of a want for chocolate, or a new car, a better job, a bigger house, or an athletic body.
In meditation practice, the field of desire narrows quite a bit, because meditation involves a significant level of renunciation. In our society and culture, we tend to think of renunciation as a burden or struggle. We’ll say, “I don’t want to do it, but I will because it’s good for me.” Like a child being forced to eat their vegetables. But when we begin to understand the power, joy, and meaning of renunciation, our point of view changes. Now we can see that addiction is a real burden, and not buying into desire is the greatest freedom. Yet even in the renunciation of the meditation state, the mind finds many opportunities for wanting to arise. A simple example is the desire for food, or a desire for excitement or stimulation.
A good time to practice recognizing desire is during walking meditation, when we have the urge to look around. Like with sitting meditation, during walking meditation our eyes are only slightly open enough to see the ground a few feet in front of us so that we can see where we are going and walking. As you walk, you might catch something out of the corner of your eye, and when you’re not mindful, not being aware, and before you know it, you turn, you look, and you start thinking about what you see. You can get lost pleasant or unpleasant fantasies, either about the people you see or about situation outside of your meditation area.
We can also get attached to the calm and peaceful states we sometimes experience in meditation. As your practice deepens and progresses, it can get very, very peaceful and calming. You might feel a kind of calm you’ve never experienced before, and it’s a delightful feeling. If you’re not aware of what’s happening, it’s easy for the mind to get attached to that sensation. At that point, it simply before another object of desire.
Another way desire arises in meditation is in the the form of expectation: a desire for results. Expectations can come when you’re bored and start wanting something to happen, or when the mind gets attached to the excitement that comes with some interesting experience. As we mentioned above, our meditation practice can sometimes be very peaceful and calming, and sometimes we create this expectation that every meditation session we have should feel the same way. Not every meditation session is going to be the same, and it’s wrong to assume every session is going to be a successful one. Sometimes if we’re had a particularly busy, long, and stressful day, we might be too tired and not have enough energy to sit for meditation, and if we do, our mind wanders too much or we start feeling sleepy. The comparing mind also fuels expectations. You compare this sitting with the last sitting, and maybe it’s different or more difficult, so an expectation arises to regain something you’ve felt before.
The habit of grasping on to pleasure and trying to evade pain sets us up in opposition to the simple truth of the present moment. In trying to manipulate events, we lose our sense of trust in the direct, immediate experience of the now. It’s quite often we see and hear advertisements and commercials trying to sell us products and services with the message: “Fulfill this desire, buy this product, have this experience, and you will achieve everlasting happiness!” The gift of meditation is that it helps us see through this illusion. We go after different sense pleasures, including the pleasures of the mind, because of the enjoyable feeling it gives us. The problem is that these pleasant feelings, like everything else, are impermanent. We always need another and another and another to feel satisfied.
It’s said that the hardest disease to cure is the kind that’s caused by the medicine you’re taking. The same principle applies to desire: endlessly trying to satisfy the wanting mind only leads to more wanting. Naturally, this doesn’t mean we should never enjoy ourselves. That’s not the point to understanding desire. The point is simply to realize the very transitory nature of enjoyment, and that it’s not capable of finally satisfying us. Instead of longing for something you know you enjoy, wishing and hoping you have it all the time, just enjoy having it in the present moment for when you do have it. Recognize that it’s there, but won’t last forever. Meditation practice opens up the possibility of much greater happiness in our lives.
So how can we come to understand the deep, powerful conditioning of desire in the mind? The first and most important step is to make it the object of our mindfulness: recognize desire when it appears, noting it carefully without getting caught up or lost in it. We don’t judge the desire, we don’t judge that it arises, or judging ourselves for having it. We simply notice that it’s appearing. If enjoyment is associated with the desire, we notice the enjoyment, too. All we’re doing is seeing clearly whatever is happening. From this foundation of mindfulness, we investigate more deeply and see that desire is born out of pleasant feelings. It’s because an experience is pleasurable that we desire it. And so we begin to notice, to be aware of, the pleasantness itself.
This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t enjoy whatever pleasant experiences do arise. Rather, we should be mindful of the pleasure so that it doesn’t unknowingly lead to more wanting. Our aspiration is to not be so lost in, or driven by, the force of desire. As we’re meditating, if the thought of food arises, simply and quickly label the thought as “food” or “hungry.” The goal is to recognize what kind of thought it is, note it, and let it go. If we don’t, then we get caught up in the distraction. We start thinking about what we’re hungry for, where we should go to eat, or what we have in the fridge to make. We start playing with and entertaining this distraction, and we waste precious meditation time. It might take a few seconds or a few minutes, but as long as you eventually become mindful of the distraction, note it, and continue on with your meditation, that’s all that matters.
It’s also helpful, as we practice, to reflect on where this desire is leading. Where is it taking us? Do we want to go there? Is this desire helpful? How long will it last? The recollection of impermanence is also very helpful in freeing the mind from the grip of desire or addiction – impermanence on the momentary level, where things arise and pass away constantly, and also on the level of life itself.
Most important in all this is appreciating the depth of our conditioning around desire and not judging it. We don’t judge ourselves or the meditation. Instead, we become interested in understanding how our mental habits arise and pass away. In other words, we become interested in freedom. Learning about desire in our meditation practice helps us see this same tendency more clearly in our everyday lives. Seeing it more clearly gives us more choices. It clears the space we need to practice discriminating wisdom. When should we act on desire? When is fulfillment of the desire appropriate? When is it not? When is it simply leading to more suffering? Seeing clearly gives us the freedom to ask these question and to make choices based on understanding, rather than on unconscious habits. This is the great power of meditation.
*These are the summary notes from the Intro to Buddhist Meditation class with Venerable Master Thích Quang Trí. Meditation classes are every 2nd and 4th Saturday of the month at 10am.